On the most recent episode of her TLC reality series, "Sarah Palin's Alaska," the once-and-maybe-future candidate for high office shot a caribou on camera. In the process, Palin fired the first salvo in the latest culture war involving the Thrilla from Wasilla.
Before the episode even aired Palin, ever adept at utilizing Facebook to taunt and tweak her rivals, had posted a rebuttal to her critics: "Tonight's hunting episode of Sarah Palin's Alaska "controversial"? Really? Unless you've never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather couch or eaten a piece of meat, save your condemnation of tonight's episode. I remain proudly intolerant of anti-hunting hypocrisy. :)"
Perhaps never before has an emoticon been so pointedly pecked.
Sure enough, it didn't tale long for some Dem-leaning celebs to fight back on behalf of the late caribou, who obviously is in no condition to do anything.
Most of the criticism is focused on the perceived hypocrisy of Palin, herself, as a self-styled pioneer not hunting for food and survival but for political sport and good TV -- and doing it with freshly French manicured hands.
The "West Wing" creator and writer of "The Social Network," Aaron Sorkin, led the opposition's charge against Palin. Opening with Palin's Facebook quote on his Huffington Post column today, Sorkin then wrote: "You're right, Sarah, we'll all just go f--- ourselves."
And that's the nice part.
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"Like 95% of the people I know, I don't have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt," Sorkin wrote. "But like absolutely everybody I know, I don't relish the idea of torturing animals."
Later in the piece, he continued: "And you didn't just do it for fun and you didn't just do it for money. That was the first moose ever murdered for political gain. You knew there'd be a protest from PETA and you knew that would be an opportunity to hate on some people, you witless bully. What a uniter you'd be -- bringing the right together with the far right."
Not surprisingly, Palin's Facebook post has proved provocative, having garnered nearly 31,000 "likes" and over 5,000 comments. Most of the responses are pro-Palin, such as one that reads: "Sarah I agree with you 100%. As for all the Anti-Hunters stick to your tofu and vegetables."
A handful of Facebookers, however, took exception with Palin's position. One anti-Palin poster linked, with no commentary, to a "Family Guy" YouTube video called "You're a big fat phony!!!!!"
The fact that Sarah Palin is stirring up controversy is nothing new, of course, but this latest episode has a powder-keg quality that few of her previous tweets generated.
Selected Reading: Huffington Post, YouTube, Facebook.
